Understanding the deeper currents of the global climate conversation
We are partnering with Cortico, a non-profit that works alongside MIT CCC (Center for Constructive Communication) to bring a unique combination of deep human listening, natural language processing, and machine learning to amplify the perspectives encapsulated by the programme.
There is a wealth of global climate experiences to collect, understand, and share. Until the end of February 2023, we will record and analyse hundreds of conversations across 15+ locations.
By detecting patterns between shared questions and the corresponding themes and emotions, we will be able to reveal some of the deeper currents of the climate conversation that flows across the planet.
“With so many global climate experiences to collect, understand, and share, we’re bringing deep human listening and artificial intelligence to document and elevate Global We conversations. Our work elevates these conversations, giving them a better chance of being heard and sparking real climate action,” says Deb Roy, CEO of Cortico and Director of MIT CCC.
Get a glimpse of our process
After the conversations are facilitated and recorded, they get uploaded on our conversation platform and become part of a collection.
15+ facilitators from around the world, along with people from the Cortico, MIT CCC, and Museum of the UN teams will actively engage with the conversations to analyse, make meaning, and thematically organize the stories and experiences that were shared during the conversations.
The process is organised into three steps:
Listening: As conversations are facilitated and recorded, they will be transcribed, automatically indexed by topic, and converted into visual conversation records on a browsable collection in our LVN workspace here. Here are two recent examples of conversations we collected at COP 27:
Analyzing: In order to better understand the hundreds of conversations we collect, our sensemaking process will engage 25+ conversation facilitators from around the world in working together to build on each other’s knowledge, expertise, and skills to learn from one another and share nuanced insights on the experiences we are listening to. Our guiding questions are: How might we analyze the rich and complex stories and experiences shared and make sense of this data? How can we uplift how the lived experiences shared in these conversations reflect the mission, the objectives, and the values of Global We?
Synthesizing: From the above, we identify themes and patterns in the conversations and map related experiences to thematic categories. These themes will be brought to life through the real voices of community members. As a further reflection on the themes, we will share recommendations with climate action that can be listened to and read by people around the world.
Stay tuned:
Our findings and methodology will be launched on a public site in 2023. We will share insights for world leaders, journalists, activists, historians, and the broader public to bring real community voices into decision-making, reporting, advocating, and the historical record. This work will surface a more authentic, more personal climate narrative.
About Cortico & MIT CCC:
At the media technology non-profit Cortico, we believe civic life can be revitalized when we hold space for constructive conversation. Recognizing traditionally underheard voices can yield improved understanding and communication across boundaries. To help repair our fragmented society, we must create civic spaces where perspectives shared by community members grounded in their identity and experiences spark more informed and transparent decisions from leaders.
Cortico’s platform brings people together in recorded small-group conversations around their life experiences. Through a powerful combination of deep human listening and artificial intelligence, the platform enables partners to make sense of the conversations they collect by amplifying typically underheard voices, informing public understanding, driving better policymaking, and enabling unforeseen connections across the ideological spectrum.
Cortico’s unique human-machine system is the product of an effort led in cooperation with MIT’s Center for Constructive Communication.